


Spider-Man: Close To Home

by Alex13Creations



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Marvel Universe, Pre-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Superheroes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2020-12-21 06:49:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 19,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21070673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alex13Creations/pseuds/Alex13Creations
Summary: An origin story for MCU Peter Parker





	1. Introduction

When they came out of the sky, it was like all hell had broken loose. Out of that wormhole above New York, down came monsters the likes of which the world had never seen before. The only description that did any justice to what followed would be war.

War was never a pretty picture, but more often than not, you only see it in pictures. You hear reports of it on the news, and you hear the stories of glory and horror sometime after the soldiers come home...

It's different when it's happening right down the street.

He had just gone downtown to pick up some groceries. His nephew, Peter, had gotten straight A's on his report card, so his wife, May Parker, wanted to make an extra special dinner for him as a reward. Ben Parker was at the front counter when it happened.

There were screams coming from outside. Several customers inside looked out the window worriedly, but Ben was the first to go outside with his groceries in hand. Those on the street were looking up to the sky and pointing at what was coming down.

He dropped his groceries in shock.

Flying ships were coming down from a huge hole in the sky, raining down blasts that caused explosion after explosion. As the hive of aliens swirled out of the portal, they began to spread out further and further, closer to where he stood.

"Get to the subway!" Ben yelled to those around him, figuring that the best place to go would be underground.

He pushed himself to run as fast as he could towards the nearest stairwell, urging those who were around him to do the same. He went down just in time as explosions began to erupt behind him. He felt the ground shake as he made his way down, and rubble fell over the way he had come.

With no way to go but down, he made his way down to the station below. Hearing the rumbling and screaming going on above, some were looking upwards with concern, but no one seemed to know what was really going on.

"Do you hear all that? What is that?" A mother with her little girl asked him as he came down the steps. Ben had to recompose himself, catching his breath before answering her.

"There's... I don't even know what's up there, but they're attacking the city. It's some kind of invasion!" He said to them, loud enough for others to hear. Some looking at him and hearing him seemed clearly shaken by this, while others scoffed and shook their heads.

Suddenly, the ceiling above the subway tracks collapsed! Large chunks of the street caved into the tunnel, spilling people and cars into the hole. One larger figure fell in as well; one of the aliens attacking the city had somehow gotten mixed up into the pile.

"Oh my god!!!" Many screamed, now beginning to panic. Ben looked to the mother and her child, then looked around for a way out.

"What is that thing?!" The girl shouted, pointing at the alien. Her mother clutched her daughter's head to her shoulder, shielding her vision.

"Don't look, honey. Just hold on to me." Her mother said, trying to be soothing while also terrified. Ben put a hand on her arm, speaking frantically.

"We need to stay underground. We'll have a better chance of surviving down here." Ben said, pointing to a stairwell leading up to the station.

"Okay, honey, hold on to me, okay? Just hold on." The mother said to her daughter before nodding to Ben. The two of them made a break for the steps, rushing upwards.

As they ran, some aliens began to pour down into the tunnel, shooting down some of the other people in the terminal. Not looking back, Ben and the mother turned into a main terminal, where there was a huge influx of people rushing in for safety.

Peering over the terrified mob towards the entrance, Ben could see that more aliens were chasing them in, firing their weapons. Ben looked back towards the mother, knowing that their only chance was to run the same direction as the crowd.

Taking hold of the mother's free hand, Ben pulled them into the flow of the crowd, bumping shoulders with other scared people. He felt his adrenaline kicking in and his lungs heaving to keep him going, but he had to find another way out.

"In here!" Ben shouted to the mother, pulling her to another stairwell going down towards a different train. They scampered down the steps into an empty station in the dark.

The mother stopped, backing up against a wall to capture her breath. She began to sob, breathing heavily as she slid down to a seated position against the wall.

"Oh my god, it's like a war zone up there! What are we going to do?" She asked. Ben, although terrified himself, did his best to suppress his fear as he kneeled down in front of the woman.

"Listen. What's your name?"

"It's-It's Carla."

"And your daughter's name?"

"Lily."

"Okay, Carla. You need to pull it together, okay? For Lily. I wanna see you both get out of here and safe. I wanna get out of here too so I can get back to my wife and nephew. Just think about making it out of here. Okay?" He said, holding his hand out to her. She took it with a nod, letting him help her stand.

Ben pulled his phone out, turning on the flashlight. The three made their way down one of the tunnels, following alongside the tracks. Lily clutched tighter to her mother, shivering a bit.

"I'm scared, mommy."

"It's okay, dear. It'll be okay." Carla said softly, rubbing the back of her head.

They made it to yet another station, and found one of the aliens was searching the area. Ben stopped them, and they all ducked down underneath a space below the tracks to avoid being seen. Ben covered up his phone light, and looked over the edge.

The alien was making a final sweep. It gargled a bit strangely, looking down both sides of the track tunnels. Ben ducked down further into his hiding place. Finally, the alien made his way back up the stairs. Once its footsteps faded away, they emerged from their hiding place.

"They're searching the tunnels." Carla said.

"They'll find us eventually if we stay here." Ben said.

"Is it any safer up there?"

"I don't know. But we don't have a choice." Ben said, motioning her across the tracks to go up a different set of steps. They made their way back up to the surface.

In a matter of minutes, New York had been transformed into a battleground. Everywhere they looked, cars had been overturned and injured people were laid out all over the ground. Up in the buildings, fires had gone up everywhere.

"I don't think anywhere is safe." Carla said with a shake of her head. Ben looked down the street, seeing there was an evacuation going on.

"People are hiding in that bank over there! Go there." Ben pointed.

"What about you?"

"I'll guide people that way too. I'm right behind you, go!" Ben urged her. With a nod, Carla held tight to her daughter and made a run for it. Ben watched her for a moment before turning around.

"Everyone! Run to the bank! Go! Go!" He urged them. He motioned them down the road, and some followed. However, some began to double back.

Looking up, he saw a monstrous flying creature that was coming in for a hard crash landing on the road. Ben doubled back as well, rushing into a nearby bodega as the strange creature came in for a landing, sending up a cloud of dust.

Ben ducked down in one of the aisles of the little shop along with several others. He made his way back away from the window, hoping to keep himself hidden from those aliens.

With fear beginning to resurface again, Ben tried to keep his mind on staying alive: making it back to his apartment in Queens where he lived with his wife and 10-year-old nephew. Surely, they would be worried about him.

That's when the ground rumbled again, and the building crumbled down on top of everyone inside...


	2. Paying Respects

5 Years Later…

“Hard to believe it’s been another year.” Aunt May said to Peter, resting a hand on his back. Peter nodded, not saying much as he stared at the name etched in marble stone: ‘Benjamin Parker’.

After the Battle of New York in 2012, once the dust had settled, the Chitari aliens were dealt with by the Avengers, and the city had rebuilt, they created a monument park to those who lost their lives in the attack. The two of them came once a year to pay their respects to Peter’s late uncle.

“Seems like the time’s going by faster and faster each year.” Peter finally said in response. May nodded in agreement, managing somewhat of a sad but optimistic smile.

“It does. But you know what he would say, honey. He’d say something like, ‘Learn what you can from me then go out and do something worth remembering.’” May said, doing her best to put a positive spin on things. Peter smiled a bit and nodded.

“I’ll catch up in a minute. Can I just have a second?”

“Sure, hun.” May nodded, hugging her nephew and kissing him on the side of his head before leaving him alone.

Peter sighed, staring at the name. The more he looked at it, the less he could see the image of man whom the name belonged to: Uncle Ben; the man who taught him how to ride a bike and helped him with his homework and who would insist on fixing plumbing and electrical issues himself to save money.

More often than not, Uncle Ben had something to say that held some sort of wisdom or advice. He often used them on Peter when he was having trouble with other kids in school or when he was frustrated with something.

Now that he was going into his first year of high school at Midtown, he really felt that he could use that advice right about now.

“Hi there.”

His thoughts were interrupted as another young man, older than him, came over and stood by him. Peter nodded, his brain still a little jumbled from the surprise of this stranger coming to greet him.

“Uh, yeah, h-hey.” Peter said in a slight stutter.

“What’s your name?” The guy asked him.

“Peter.”

“Nice to meet you, Peter. I, uh, noticed you here staring at this one particular name. Family member?” He guessed. Peter nodded in response.

“Uh, yeah. He was my uncle. Kinda my father, really, in a way.” Peter answered. The young man nodded with a solemn sigh. He pointed to the name next to Ben’s. It read: ‘Maria Sanchez’.

“My sister. She was about as old as I am now when it all went down.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Peter said in understanding.

“I appreciate it. It was tough, you know? I mean, yeah, you know… For a long time, I was just looking for…blame. I especially blamed the Avengers, you know? I mean, why couldn’t they save her? Did you ever think like that?” The guy asked. Peter shook his head.

“No. They were just trying to help. You just… You can’t save everyone sometimes. But if they hadn’t done what they could, they’d need a lot more space for this park.” Peter said. The guy chuckled a bit somberly, nodding in agreement.

“Yeah, I feel the same way now. It took time, but really it only falls on the things responsible. You can’t hate those who were just trying to help. It doesn’t really help to have that weighing down on you either.”

“Yeah… You know, Uncle Ben probably would’ve defended them too. I remember he once said something like, ‘A superhero story without superheroes would just be a villain hurting a lot of innocent people. No one wants to read about that.’”

“Sounds like your uncle was a good guy.”

“Yeah, he was. Really good.” Peter said, looking up at the name again.

“Something that’s really helped me all these years is, uh… I just try to do the right thing, be the best person I can be, and then I like to think that if my sister were still around, she’d be proud of her baby brother.” The guy recounted with a small chuckle. Peter nodded a bit.

“That’s good advice. I’m sure my uncle would have a few things to say to me if he were here now.” Peter said, starting to walk away from the monument.

“Yeah. Well, just try to take his advice. Make it your own.”

“Sure. Thanks, man.” Peter said, turning and waving to him. The guy waved back with a nod.

“Nice meeting you, Peter. Take care.” He said before turning and going his own way.

“Who was that?” May asked curiously once Peter had made his way back to her. Peter simply shrugged, glancing back but not seeing the guy.

“I don’t know. Just some guy.”

“Oh okay. Does he go to your school?”

“No. I mean, I don’t know. I don’t think so.” Peter shook his head.

“Okay. Well, we need to go get the last of your school supplies. You ready?”

***

“Are you excited to be almost at the start of a new school year? End of the summer is just around the corner.” May commented with a smile as the two sat at their dining table in their small apartment. Peter chuckled a bit and shook his head before taking a bite of his food.

“Summer’s too short. They need to make it longer.” He responded. May smiled a bit.

“Well, maybe you can invite your friend Ned over. That’ll be fun, huh?” She asked, finding more positives to point out. Peter nodded again.

“Yeah, that’s true. That’ll be cool.” Peter recalled.

“We’ll put something together.” She said with a chuckle.

“Sounds good.” Peter nodded, going quiet again as his eyes drifted down to his food. May looked him over with concern before speaking again.

“You know, Peter, I was thinking today. Maybe with the new year rolling around, you could have a fresh start… I think you should try branching out a little bit.” May brought up her suggestion. Peter glanced up at her.

“What do you mean?” He asked, tilting his head slightly.

“Well, I mean, maybe make some more friends or…you could join a club!” She suggested as the idea dawned on her just then. Peter scrunched his nose at the thought of it.

“A club? I don’t know about a club, May, I mean, that’s kind of a nerd thing.” Peter said, knowing that this meant nothing to the either of them.

“So? It’s better than doing a loner thing. Maybe you and Ned could join something together, so you don’t feel completely awkward. Umm… Oh! What about that dumpster diving thing you do? You could use that!”

“I don’t think they offer a ‘Dumpster Diving Club’.” Peter said.

“Well, yeah, but you could use that in another club. Like, Robotics club? Computer club?” May threw out suggestions.

“Eh, Robotics is too much money to front for competitions. And they probably don’t have any computer club like that.” Peter said.

“Well, what about video game club? You like video games, right?”

“Yeah, but I don’t really have any consoles like what the other kids bring in.” Peter pointed out.

“Gotcha... Just try and find something, Peter. You don’t want to go through all of high school feeling left out, like you don’t belong? I guarantee you; if you reach out for something, sooner or later you’re gonna find something.”

“Sure. I’ll, uh, talk it over with Ned and we can go through the club list.” Peter agreed with a nod. May smiled a bit and nodded too.

“Big things are coming, honey. You’ll see.”


	3. Join The Club

"Why does your Aunt May want us to join a club? We have a good thing going between the two of us. Like two peas in a pod. I'm like Obi-Wan and you're like Anakin. We can't mess that up." Ned argued as he and Peter walked down the street together.

"I don't know, man. I mean, I guess it wouldn't hurt just to look... Wait, why do you get to be Obi-Wan? How do you know I don't wanna be Obi-Wan?" Peter questioned.

"Because, Pete, you look way more like Anakin than Obi-Wan." Ned argued.

"Oh, and you look just like Obi-Wan?" Peter asked with a laugh. Ned opened his mouth to argue, but just nodded in agreement and chuckled.

"Anyways, I was looking through the list. I circled the ones I thought would work for us." Peter said, handing Ned the list he had printed out. Ned began to go through it.

"You circled Drama club? Are you serious? You know how I feel about putting on costumes." Ned said with a groan. Peter shrugged.

"I'm just spit-balling dude! I thought it might be fun. You don't want that one, we'll pick something else." Peter said quickly.

"Okay... No... No... Ew... Uh, I guess Knowledge Bowl wouldn't be so bad. I am very quick and intellectual." Ned said humorously. Peter scoffed a bit.

"Alright, we'll mark that down then." Peter nodded.

"Robotics and Band wouldn't be too bad either." Ned added.

"But what about the entry fee for Robotics? You know I don't have that kind of cash, man." Peter argued.

"Yeah, but the superintendent changed that policy apparently. There's no fee, it's free." Ned informed him. Peter's eyes widened a bit.

"Oh, really? Okay... Let's do it then... Did you say Band too?" Peter asked, looking a bit surprised by this suggestion from Ned.

"Yeah! I've always wanted to learn how to play the saxophone. Train myself to play like Kenny G." Ned said.

"Who's that?" Peter asked.

"Eh, some old dude. He plays bedtime music, I think." Ned said.

Peter's attention was then disrupted as they approached an alley. The alley was fenced off, but behind the fence he could see a dumpster with computer equipment sitting inside of it. Peter immediately began to gravitate towards it.

"What are you doing, Peter?" Ned questioned.

"Dude, there's a hard drive in that unit right there! I can use it to build my computer!" Peter said, linking his fingers inside of the fence.

"You're building a computer?"

"Yeah! I told you about this, remember? I can totally climb this." Peter said, beginning to step back and survey the fence. Ned looked at the building by the dumpster. Its sign read: 'PARSONS LABS'.

"Dude, are you crazy?! It's fenced off for a reason! What if there's something radioactive in there?" Ned pointed out. Peter looked at him and scoffed.

"Dude, don't be ridiculous." Peter said, beginning to climb the fence.

"Wuh, okay, well it's still breaking and entering. And I can't go to jail, my Mom would kill me!" Ned continued to argue with Peter even as he made his way down to the other side of the fence.

"It's okay, dude. I'll just be in and out. Besides, whatever I don't use for the computer, we can use for Robotics." Peter pointed out, hopping into the dumpster and beginning to sift through the computer equipment.

"Are you kidding?!" Ned said, quickly turning around so his back was to Peter, pretending to be hanging around for no reason, "We are gonna get in real trouble, dude." He whispered back to Peter.

"I promise you, I will be in and out in no time. I just gotta break off the case." Peter said, beginning to hit the computer console against the wall of the dumpster. The loud banging noise startled Ned, and he began to hiss at Peter.

"Peter, get out!" Ned said. Peter held his head up to respond to Ned, but ducked down when he saw a police car pulling up at the street light.

"Play it cool, Ned!" Peter said. Ned quickly turned around again, and cupped his hands in front of him when he saw the cop car. The police car rolled down its window.

"Hey, kid. You lost?" The police officer inside asked. Ned pointed to himself and looked around, then shook his head.

"No, sir. I'm not lost. Just, uh, checking my phone is all. You know..." Ned said, quickly pulling out his phone and taking a look through it. "Oh, look at that, my Mom texted me. Better text back, hahaha." Ned laughed nervously.

"What?" Peter mouthed silently, shaking his head a bit, "I'm not doing this with you anymore, Ned." He whispered and groaned, waiting to hear from Ned that he could get out.

As Peter turned his body a bit inside of the dumpster, getting into a more comfortable position in mid-crouch, he felt a strange itching on his hand. He glanced down at it, and saw it just in time to see a black spider bite him on the hand.

"Ow!" Peter hissed quietly, shaking his hand. He looked at the bite and saw that the small marks from where the bite had gotten him right on the top of his hand where his vein passed through.

"Peter? You okay? Did you get radiation poisoning?" Ned asked.

"What? No, dude! Are they gone?" Peter asked.

"Yes! Now get out of there! I am not covering for you again. I will snitch!" Ned said.

Peter quickly climbed out of the dumpster. He passed the computer console over the fence, and Ned caught it. He stepped back and jumped towards the fence, hitting his stomach against the top of it. With a groan, he pulled his legs over and dropped back down onto the sidewalk.

"Thanks." Peter said, taking the computer equipment back.

"Dude, that was super dangerous. You could have gotten in so much trouble." Ned said again.

"So? Dude, I'm fine. Let's go. We still got clubs to decide on." Peter said. With a shake of his head, Ned continued to walk with him...


	4. Discoveries

“Peter? Peter, where are you? You should already be up and eating breakfast!” Aunt May called for Peter, knocking on his bedroom door and entering. He found his nephew lying down in his bed with a cold sweat swept across his forehead.

“Sorry.” Peter said with a weak groan, turning his body towards her a bit. Aunt May immediately sat down at his bedside, feeling his forehead.

“Peter, dear, you’re burning up! You have a fever.” May said.

“Yeah. I really feel like it. My whole body just feels…achy.” Peter said with a breathy chuckle. May tilted her head a little bit.

“Well, let me call the school then before I go. You rest up, okay, tough guy?” May said, patting him on the arm before leaving his room and closing the door behind her.

When the door shut closed, the sound rang with a loud suddenness in his ears, making him jump. Peter gasped in surprise as he felt noise starting to fill his ears. His eyes widened, and just as suddenly his eyes became overwhelmed with light.

“Ah jeez!” Peter hissed, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. He shook his head a bit, almost overwhelmed by all of the intense sensations.

As Peter started to turn his body away from the light, he felt a sudden dizziness in his head. He fell out of the bed and landed on his side, rubbing his eyes some more. He cleared his throat a bit, reaching up for his bed sheets to pull himself up.

As he stood up slowly and his senses started to slow a little bit, he felt a strange tingly feeling in his hands. He looked down and saw that his bed sheets were stuck to the palm of his hand. He shook it around a bit, and saw that it wasn’t coming off.

“What the hell…?” Peter raised an eyebrow and made a weird expression, shaking his hand even harder. He grabbed the blanket with his other hand and pulled it off slowly. It made a noise a lot like ripping apart Velcro.

“Woahhh…” Peter cringed, looking closely at his hand. He could see pieces of the fabric still stuck to his palm. He had to pick them off little by little.

“Gross.” He cringed. He heard a fly whizz past his face, causing him to jump. He very quickly shot upwards, hitting his head on the ceiling. He groaned in pain as he fell on his bed, clutching his head.

Then he suddenly sat up in bed again. Everything froze for a moment as the realization of everything that had just happened hit him…

“Do I…?” He exclaimed, standing up again. He brushed his hands up the back of his head and began to pace restlessly.

“Okay, okay, hold on…” Peter took in a breath. He looked down at his hands again before making his way to his desk. His eyes fell onto a weighty school history textbook; a perfect test.

He slapped his hand down onto the textbook and slowly lifted his hand up. The cover of the textbook stuck to his hand, and he was able to lift the entire textbook just by placing his palm on the top of it. As it dangled from his hand, his eyebrows furrowed a bit with intrigue.

“Wow, that’s so weird!” He commented before the book slipped off of his palm, hitting the desk with a thud that startled him. He glanced at his hands again, and then up at the ceiling.

Peter then proceeded to jump up and press his palms into the ceiling. He’d done this plenty of times before, but this time instead of feeling his feet hit the floor again, he felt a sudden pull on his arms as he stuck to the ceiling.

“Woah woo!” Peter exhaled sharply as his feet swung a bit. He looked down at the ground, and then back up at his hands with a laugh. He allowed his right hand to slip off of the ceiling so that his entire body was dangling from the ceiling by just his one hand.

A rush of exhilaration went through him as it was now fully dawning on him what he could do. Peter brought his right hand back up to the ceiling and pulled himself up so that both of his hands as well as his feet were on the ceiling. He was surprised to discover that his feet stuck as well.

“Oh man, this is so cool! They’re like a…like… Like a squirrel on a tree! Which…sounds lame.” Peter said as he began to crawl across the ceiling of his room. He looked up towards the floor of his room.

“I wonder what else I can do.”

*** 

Peter stretched out his arms and his legs a little bit as he now stood on the ceiling of his apartment building. There weren’t a whole lot of other buildings nearby, and none that stood taller, so there was little risk of him being seen.

“Okay. We’re just gonna start out slow. We’ll just see how high I can jump.” Peter decided with a nod, stretching his legs a little bit before bending his knees. He counted to three in his head, and then proceeded to jump upwards as high as he could manage.

To his surprise, he shot up into the air like a rocket! Peter’s breath escaped him as he easily jumped several stories into the air, and he began to flail in a panic as he came back down towards the roof. He landed awkwardly on his right foot, which caused him to bounce a bit and fall flat on his stomach and face. He groaned in discomfort.

“Ughh… That was awesome.” He said weakly.

Clearly, he had a lot to figure out…


	5. Decisions

“And so once again, that brings us back to our formula of a-squared multiplied by b-squared equals c-squared. Now, when we plug this in, what do we get? Mr. Parker! You still with us?” The math teacher called out to him.

Peter, who was finding it impossible to focus, turned his head towards the teacher in one sudden jerking motion. He tapped his foot restlessly, doing his best to appear casual and relaxed.

“Uh, um, sorry.” He said with a nervous, awkward chuckle.

“Mr. Parker, what do we get when we plug in the Pythagorean Theorem into this equation?” The teacher asked again, gesturing towards the board. Peter’s eyes began to scan it.

As his eyes darted to the different writings on the board, he realized that his eyes were focusing in way too much, causing him to notice smaller, finite details in the writing on the board rather than what he was supposed to be looking at. His eyes blinked in disorientation.

“And this, class, is what happens when you don’t pay attention. Now, does anyone actually have the answer? Flash?” The teacher moved on.

Peter shook his head a bit, trying to will himself into focusing again. It was like his senses were totally wired up, and he was having trouble dealing with it.

“Jeez, Pete, you tweekin’ bro?” He heard a voice behind him say. He was again surprised by feeling a hand on his arm.

“Hey, Peter, are you okay?” The girl sitting next to him asked. His head whipped over to look at her and he leaned away slightly, taking her face in.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, I’m fine, Cindy. Thanks.” He said, doing his best to be reassuring as he blinked a bit rapidly.

“You sure? You might wanna go to the nurse.” She recommended.

“I’m sorry, is this lecture boring you? Miss Moon? Mr. Parker? That’s okay, I’ll wait.” The teacher said in order to get the students to quiet down. Cindy quickly went back to focusing ahead of her. Peter took in a breath and did the same.

***

“Alright, everyone, pick a partner! We’re going to be doing rope climbs today!” The gym teacher said, inciting groans from the students. Peter, of course, partnered up with Ned.

However, today even Ned was noticing how funny Peter was acting. Peter wasn’t normally one to be disoriented and sweaty, so his demeanor today came as quite a concern.

“Hey, Peter, you okay? You look like you’re waiting for something to jump out and scare you.” Ned commented, placing a hand on Peter’s shoulder. Peter turned towards Ned and immediately began to brush it off with an unconvincing smile.

“Huh? Oh, nah man, haha, I’m fine. I’m fine.” He said.

“Right, okay. What was I just saying?” Ned asked.

“Uh… You were… Star…Wars…?” Peter tried slowly. Ned raised an eyebrow at him.

“Dude, you sure you’re okay? You’ve been acting weird ever since you broke into that-“

“Dude! You can’t just bring that up! You’re supposed to be cool about it.” Peter quickly hushed him.

“Sorry, sorry. Uh, anyways, I-I was just saying that I looked into the different clubs we talked about them. All of them seem pretty alright.” He informed him.

“Oh, okay. Good. Good, dude! I’ll have to- I’ll have to do the same.” Peter said with a nod. The two of them reached the end of the line now, meaning that it was their turn to try and climb the rope.

“Ugh, they should not be making people my size climb these things. What do they expect me to do, climb to the top and do a backflip?” Ned said sarcastically as he went forward to climb the rope. Peter held onto the rope to keep it steady as Ned tried to climb and did not get very far.

In the 30 seconds of Ned attempting to climb the rope, Peter imagined himself doing what Ned had sarcastically said. With his new abilities, he could probably do something exactly like that; maybe more. He’d certainly look really cool doing something like that.

“Alright, yeah, you know what, Pete? I don’t actually know why I’m still trying. Peer pressure. You go.” Ned said, tapping Peter on the back and smacking him out of his thoughts.

“Huh? Oh, yeah, okay man, I’ll go.” Peter said, grabbing onto the rope and pulling his legs up. He got the rope between his feet and began to inch upwards effortlessly.

As he made his way up, it became evident right away that he could easily climb all the way up to the ceiling on this rope. Heck, he could probably jump up and touch the ceiling with how he was now. He easily could become like a star athlete!

But then before he let his imagination run wild and get the best of him, he took another look around at everyone else. They were all focusing on their own thing now, but if he made his way up too far, all eyes would be on him.

And that’s when it hit him: he may have powers now, but he didn’t before. He’d done nothing to earn these things that he could do, so what gave him the right to use it to forward himself while pushing down those around him?

Besides, if he decided to use his powers to do something actually meaningful, he couldn’t afford to reveal himself by doing something extravagant now. It’d be better if no one knew what he could do; that way no one could ruin it for him.

With a sigh, Peter loosened his grip on the rope. He slipped a little bit before his powers got him sticking to the rope again. He jerked a little bit before completely letting go of the rope and dropping to his feet. He looked back to Ned.

“Yeah, man, these rope climbs are way too hard. I don’t get what the point of it is.” He said in agreement as they walked away…


	6. Testing Things Out

"Hey, Peter! How was school today?" Aunt May asked as Peter came in, quickly but semi-casually making his way towards his room.

"Uh, yeah, it was great, Aunt May. Just got a lot of homework to do. I'mma get right to it, so..." He quickly explained, pointing back towards his room with his thumb.

"Oh, of course, okay. I'm gonna go out and pick up some stuff from the store. Back soon, okay?" Aunt May said with a smile as she grabbed her keys to the apartment.

"Alright. Love you!" He said.

"Love you too!" Aunt May replied. The words had barely come off of her tongue before Peter shut the door to his room.

Now in the privacy of his bedroom, he tossed his backpack onto his bed, removing his jacket and outermost sweater. He paced around his room, his mind racing and his body full of jittery energy. 

The ride home from school had been like a nightmare or a fever dream. With so much noise and movement, his brain couldn't focus on everything his senses were taking in. He must've looked psychotic to those around him.

"Ok... Ok ok ok, this is, uh...crazy. This is crazy, what the hell?" He said to himself in a low whisper, shaking his head and rubbing his face with his hands. Finally, he took a few deep breaths, stopping himself from doing anymore pacing.

"Okay..." Peter sighed, looking up at the ceiling of his bedroom. He hopped up, tapping it with the fingertips of both of his hands this time.

He jolted a bit as he stuck to the ceiling. He looked down at his feet a bit with a chuckle. It was weird how he was feeling a measure of comfort just by doing this. He flexed his arms, lifting himself up a bit as if doing pull-ups.

He extended his arms out again, letting his left hand fall. He dangled by his right arm, his dominant arm. He looked down at the floor just a foot or two below. He opened up his hand, landing on the floor with his feet spread shoulder-width apart.

"I am a superhero...!" He said out loud, chuckling a bit to himself as this realization was now cemented in his brain. He turned around, looking out the window.

"I need a mask," He said to himself, opening up his closet and beginning to rummage through different boxes of old clothes.

"Every superhero needs a mask, right? Secret identity, everyone knows that. Like Iron Man. Iron Man has a mask, right? Well, it's more like a helmet...and everyone knows who he is...

"Captain America has a mask! Well, ish...and everyone knows who he is...

"Black Widow: no.

"Thor: no.

"Hulk: Definitely not.

"Hawkeye...?

"We need more superheroes with masks man, wow." He said to himself, finally pulling out a black cotton mask with three holes for his eyes and mouth. He held it up.

"Just call me the amazing bank robber! God, what am I doing?" Peter said to himself with a doubtful exhale, rubbing his face with the palm of his hand before proceeding to pull the mask over his face, aligning his eyes and mouth with the holes in the mask.

He went to the window now, opening it up slowly. He threw a leg over the edge, fixing his shirt as he did so. He looked up the outside wall towards the ceiling, letting his eyes run downwards. Looking down, it was quite a drop: about 7 or 8 stories.

"I can do this... I have powers. Yeah." He said to motivate himself. He placed his hands on the brick wall and pulled himself up, placing his feet on the wall now.

He lifted himself up off of the edge by placing his hand out on the outside wall, completely supporting his own weight on it. He moved sideways as though scaling a rock wall, maneuvering himself so that the window frame was no longer underneath him.

"Oh my god... It's working!" He exclaimed, beginning to crawl up slowly, "I'm climbing up the wall...like a spider does." He said, realizing now what the proper comparison to make was as he thought back to the spider that had bitten his hand.

He took a few strained breaths as be made his way up, occasionally glancing downward. No one was noticing him clinging to the side of the building, which was good. He continued to make his way towards the roof of the building.

Just then, a window next to him opened. He froze up, looking to his left and watching as a woman leaned her head out to take a puff of her cigarette. Moments felt like hours as Peter stayed fearfully still.

However, inevitably, the woman caught sight of him clinging to the side of the building. Her eyes widened, and she dropped her cigarette in shock.

"What the?!" She screamed in shock. Peter immediately pushed himself up instinctively and held his hands out to try and explain himself.

"Woah woah hey listen, I'm really sorry, lady..." Peter began to apologize before looking down and realizing that he was standing sideways on the building with now only his feet on the wall supporting his weight; he was completely sideways.

"Oh my god..." He said lowly.

"Oh my god!!!" The woman screamed again, ducking back inside and shutting her window.

Peter quickly crawled back down to his room. He swung his legs in through the window and pushed himself into his room. He closed the window behind him and threw the mask off. It hit the door of his closet.

"Stupid stupid stupid!" He grunted, shaking his head again as he began to stress-pull at his hair. He took in a deep breath.

"I need to figure out someplace to figure this out..."


	7. Limits

Peter made his way down the street, his hands in the pockets of his jacket as he walked. His eyes were scanning around, looking for an alley to duck into or a building where he could climb to the top of. Thankfully, there weren’t a lot of people around to see him.

Seeing an empty alley with a corner to go into, Peter quickly sidestepped into the alley and made his way into the corner. He pulled the hood of his jacket over his head and looked around, making sure that he was alone and no one could see him.

He smiled a bit and jumped up onto the wall, eagerly climbing upwards. His foot slipped a little bit, but he was able to catch himself and make his way up a bit. He looked back to a wall on the other side of the alley, and tried to jump to it.

He held his hands out as he made a leap for it. His body hit the wall, and with a grunt, he was able to hold onto the wall. He felt his nose tap the wall as he stuck his hands and feet to the side of the building. He began to climb up again.

“Woo! This is awesome!” Peter grinned as he hopped upwards and climbed over the roof. He stretched his arms out a bit and looked down at the ground to see how far he had just climbed.

Peter smiled a bit, clapping his hands together in approval at his work. He turned around and looked out, seeing a series of rooftops of varying heights in front of him. He looked around, seeing that he couldn’t do much more climbing…

But he could jump.

“Alright. This’ll be easy. Just focus. Free your mind.” Peter said, clapping his hands and directing his attention forward in front of him. He took in a breath and began to run.

Peter prepared himself for the jump and stepped onto the edge of the roof, pushing himself off of it as hard as he could. He shot up and outwards into the air. He began to flail as he launched up much further than he intended to, and he completely cleared the building he’d intended to land on.

“Woah my god!!!” Peter yelled out, starting to lose control of his body. His upper body began to creep forward as he hit the ground, and he stumbled a bit in order to keep himself from falling. He grunted a bit as he finally got control of himself.

“Whew… That’s insane.” Peter said, beginning to chuckle to himself as he started to realize that the limits of his powers went much further than he thought.

He began to run forward again, pushing himself to go much faster than before. He jumped again, launching himself towards a taller building. He hit the side of it hands and feet first, bouncing slightly before beginning to climb it.

He vaulted up to the top of it and continued to run. From a much higher point, he could see more around him. He decided to take a sharp left and jump over a street. He made the jump, and he easily cleared it, rolling onto an apartment building on the other side.

Peter looked down at his hands with a wide grin on his face. This was without a doubt the best feeling he’d ever felt…

But where did all of this come from?

***

As midday was beginning to transition into the evening, Peter made his way towards Parsons Labs; the place where he’d been bitten by that spider just a couple days ago. It was after that when all of this started happening.

Whatever had happened to him, it probably came from here.

Peter looked down at it from an adjacent building. His eyes fell to the dumpster that he’d climbed to. He awkwardly shifted his weight and began to climb down the side of the building. When he was low enough, he hopped to the ground and proceeded to climb inside.

“Alright, where is that thing?” Peter wondered aloud as he looked around, using the screen of his phone to provide some light as he searched. He moved aside cardboard and junk to see if he could find any spider carcass.

Eventually, he did find it. Its body had slid down towards the bottom of the dumpster. He scooped it up in his hand, looking at it closely. Right away he could tell that, while it at first appeared to be a normal spider, there was something very different about it:

Its colors were altered. It appeared to be actually be a faint shade of blue with streaks of red on it. Peter tilted his head a bit curiously as he turned it over to inspect the underside of it. There were strange lines on its thorax.

“That’s not what spiders look like.” He hummed thoughtfully, setting it down and peeking his head around. He didn’t see anyone nearby. He decided to investigate what was going on inside Parsons Labs.

He hopped out of the dumpster and onto the wall, climbing up to the roof. He searched for a way to get in, and he eventually found it in the form of a metal grate. He pulled it off of its screws and climbed into the ventilation shaft.

He made his way inside until he found a place where he could climb out through. He pushed the vent door open and carefully exited out. From his vantage point up by the ceiling, he was able to look down and see what was going on below.

The first thing he noticed were lab coats; several men and women walking around different machines set up. Some had clipboards in their hands, while others had various tools. Peter turned his attention to an experiment that was going on right at that moment.

“Are these like mad scientists working on something nefarious?” Peter wondered to himself.

“Are we ready to begin the gamma laser experiment?” One asked another.

Peter watched as they prepared a strange looking laser on a large metal arm aimed towards the ground at a clear orb. They turned on the laser, and it began to prime to fire.

“Are we clear this time? We had some obstruction last time, and I don’t want that happening again.” The scientist who was apparently heading the experiment asked. The gentleman next to him nodded in confirmation.

“Yes. We’re clear to fire. No spiders or moths getting in the way this time.” He replied.

“Good,” The scientist nodded. “Let’s begin then.” He said. The laser was fired towards the orb and began to fill it with some sort of substance. Peter’s eyes widened.

“This was all some kinda freak accident.” He said to himself, realizing. He quickly climbed back into the vent and hurried out of the building…


	8. Motivation

"Hey, Pete. How was school today?" Aunt May asked as Peter came in. He stretched his arms out a bit and set his bag down on the table in the kitchen area.

"Eh, it was alright. You know, boring. I got a lot of homework to work on." He answered, starting to make his way towards his room.

"Hey, Pete?" Aunt May interjected suddenly, holding her finger up. Peter stopped and turned around to face her again.

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Have a seat for just a second. I wanna talk to you about something before you go and lock yourself in your room again." She said, motioning for him to come over. Peter silently made his way over and sat at the table across from her.

"What's up?" He asked.

"Well, I was kinda hoping you could tell me... Uh, I'll be honest with you, Pete, these last few days you've seemed a little... I don't know, you look like you just got something on your mind. Is there something you'd like to talk about? Tell me maybe?" Aunt May explained.

Peter swallowed inwards for a moment. He worried that Aunt May would catch on to something going on, and while he wanted to tell her everything that'd been going on lately, something kept telling him inwardly that he couldn't reveal his powers to her.

"Uh, I mean... It's just...school stress, you know? There's a lot of last-minute homework being...piled on with it being the end of the year and all," Peter explained with a breathy chuckle. "I've just been tryna get some air, you know? Keep my head clear." He continued.

"Right, yeah, I get that. Keep your head on straight. That's good," May nodded, smiling gently. "Just hang in there, alright? You'll get to catch a break soon with summer rolling around in a couple weeks." She encouraged him.

"Yeah, I know. I'm doing my best to keep things straight." Peter repeated, nodding and smiling back at her.

"Alright. Well, I'll let you work. I'll see you tonight, dear." May said, getting up, making her away around to him, bending down and hugging him. She planted a kiss on the top of his head before grabbing her things and making her way out the front door.

"Love you, Aunt May." Peter called back to her.

"Love you too, Pete!" Aunt May replied before closing the door behind her.

Peter got up from his chair with a sigh, grabbing his bag and carrying it into his room. He set his bag down on his bed and opened up the zipper. He pulled out a pair of red felt boots that he had taken from somewhere in the back of the drama storage area.

"What am I thinking...? I shouldn't be doing this." Peter said to himself with a sigh, shaking his head. He set down at his desk and ran his hands back through his hair. He cleared his throat and turned on his computer.

He reached down and pulled out his phone, and called up Ned. He put the phone on speaker as he began to walk around the room. After the phone rang a couple times, the phone clicked and Ned's voice came on.

"Hey, Pete. What's up, man?" Ned asked.

"Hey! Uh, hey, Ned. I, uh... I'm working on a... I'm working on an end-of-year English project and I was wondering if you could help me brainstorm a little bit." Peter began.

"Yeah! Sure man, I got a second. What you got?" Ned asked.

"I'm, uh, thinking about doing...a narrative from the perspective of Iron Man, you know, back before he announced he was Iron Man." Peter started.

"Oh, cool, dude! You should do like a whole action sequence with lots of explosions and guns going off! Pew pew!" Ned said with a laugh.

"Yeah, heheh, I wish... I'm actually thinking of doing something more about... Like an inner monologue of when he was deciding to be Iron Man. Like a 'should I/shouldn't I' situation, you know what I mean?" Peter explained.

"Oh, that sounds pretty deep. I like that!" Ned said approvingly.

"Thanks man. I don't know how to go about it though. I mean obviously the answer he gets at the end is he should, but what should I have for he shouldn't. Something's gotta be holding him back to overcome, right?" Peter proposed.

"Totally! Hmm... Oh, maybe you should have him worry about what will happen to the people close to him? Or maybe you could have it where he isn't sure he can do it! I mean, obviously it's Tony Stark, he can do anything, but that would definitely get you through a page or two. How long does it have to be?" Ned asked.

"That's good, Ned, that's good," Peter said, ignoring Ned's question. "But then how does he get past that? Not knowing whether he's up for it; being a superhero?" Peter asked.

"Um... Well, I mean, superheroes always do what they do to help people, right? Maybe that can be what gives him his answer." Ned suggested.

"Right... If he has the power to stop bad things, but he doesn't, then that would make him at least somewhat responsible for the things that are happening." Peter said to himself slowly.

"Yeah! That's perfect! Definitely go with tha-" Ned was cut off by Peter hanging up the phone.

Peter made his way to his closet and opened up the doors. He crouched down and began to rummage through a box on the ground. He pulled out the black mask that he had worn when practicing his climbing. He looked down at it.

"If I have the power to stop bad things from happening, and I don't...then they're my fault." Peter said to himself. It now began to weigh on him the responsibility that was now bestowed upon him.

Peter stood up straight and began to nod to himself, assuring himself that he was doing the right thing. He had to be. After all, what was he going to do with his powers other than this? No, this is what he was supposed to do.

"I'm gonna need a costume...and a name." He decided...


	9. Spider's Webs

Peter took a cautious look around the chemistry lab as he sat towards the back. He’d managed to sneak the components that he needed to his station, and now he was just doing his best to mix them without attracting attention to himself.

As his chemistry teacher blabbed on and on about something unimportant that he didn’t care about, he was busy putting together a formula that he’d found on the Stark Online Archives for a sticky tensile cord material;

The sort of thing that a spider spins its webs out of.

“Mr. Parker!” The teacher called out suddenly. He flinched in surprise, quickly taking a moment to mix what was in his beaker and close the drawer before sitting up fully.

“What? Uh, yeah? Yes?” He stuttered.

“Could you please read the box on page 153 for the class?”

“Yeah. Yeah, sure.” Peter answered, clearing his throat and beginning to read…

As he began to read, he glanced down and noticed some strange gurgling sound coming from inside of the drawer. He slowly nudged it open with the toe of his shoe. His eyes widened as he saw that his concoction was beginning to bubble, and he needed to mix it.

His reading voice began to falter as he tried to reach down for the stick he’d been mixing it with. He slid the book with his right hand, tipping it towards him off the edge of the table so that he was able to look at what he was reading while he mixed slowly with his left hand.

He glanced down again and saw his slow mixing wasn’t working. He began to mix vigorously, taking his attention away from his book. The book slipped away from his hand despite his sticky hands and fell to the floor with a loud and sudden bang.

“Sorry! Sorry…” Peter said, ducking under his desk to grab his book while his fellow classmates chuckled at him a bit. He grabbed the book and quickly mixed the webbing concoction to satisfaction before getting back up in his chair and finishing his reading with a relieved sigh…

***

Now with his webbing safely stored in his bag in a beaker taped shut, Peter just had to take it home so he could figure out how to properly utilize it. He started to make his way out when all of a sudden Ned caught up to him and stopped.

“Hey, Pete! Where are you going?” Ned asked. Peter raised his eyebrow in confusion.

“Um, home?” He answered with a tilt of his head.

“We were gonna stop by the Robotics Club real quick first, remember?” Ned reminded him. Peter didn’t remember talking with Ned about that, but with everything going on, it was very likely that he just missed it.

“Uh, oh! Yeah, man! Heheh, sorry. Lead the way, let’s go now real quick.” Peter said, cursing under his breath as Ned led him back into the depths of the school and to the class where the Robotics Club was always held.

As Ned and Peter stepped inside, they began to look curiously at the different mechanisms that the students were working on. Peter’s attention was caught by some of the bigger looking robots resembling arms and cranes.

“You know, dude, this is actually pretty cool.” Ned said with an approving nod.

Peter hummed in agreement, and his eyes fell onto a strange mechanism that included a spray bottle as one of its key components. He approached the girl who was working on it.

“Hey, what’re you working on there?” Peter asked curiously. The girl glanced up from her work and adjusted her glasses.

“Oh it’s nothing really. Just an automated arm that I hooked up to a little spritzer thing. I wanted to make a remote way to water my flowers.” She explained the purpose of her project. Peter hummed with intrigue.

“Ha, what a girl.” One of her classmates commented from where he was working on his project. The girl just rolled her eyes.

“Huh, that’s pretty cool.” Peter said to make up for the insult before making his way back to Ned.

“What do you think, dude?” Ned asked.

“I think we should definitely try to get in next year. It’ll be cool.” Peter decided with a nod.

“Awesome!” Ned said.

“Yeah, now I gotta go!” Peter said, quickly darting out of the classroom and making his way out. Before Ned could even protest, Peter had already disappeared around the corner.

***

“Alright, let’s see how this turned out.” Peter said, opening up his backpack and pulling out the webbing that he had mixed together. He set the beaker down on his desk and proceeded to look it over.

Exactly as the instructions had said, the mixture was bound and had solidified into a stringy material. Peter reached in and pulled it out, beginning to tug on a particularly long strand.

In addition to being very sticky, it was also very strong. He couldn’t pull it apart too easily unless he really put effort into it. He nodded in approval, thinking back to the girl’s design that he had looked over.

If perhaps he could find materials to pull together, he could make something capable of shooting out these webs. Surely a material like this could have many potential uses…he just had to figure out what they would be.

But he would worry about that after he made the web shooters…


	10. Phase Two

Finally! After several days of rummaging, tinkering and calculating, his web shooters were finally ready. He’d gone up to the roof every night to test them, refining his work until he was able to get the webs shot out with a strong enough velocity to hit something on the other side of the roof.

Now it was time to put them to the test.

Still inside of his room, Peter strapped the web shooters around his wrists. He adjusted them so the triggers, a small button pad, fit on the palm of his hand where he could reach them by curling his fingers inward.

He shot a web up to the ceiling. It hit the ceiling with an abrupt SPLAT! Peter nodded in approval, taking hold of the web with both hands and lifting himself up so that he was holding up his full body weight. With his new powers, this wasn’t too difficult.

“Looks like it’s working so far.” Peter commented to himself. With a grunt of effort, he lifted up his legs and maneuvered his body so that he was hanging upside down. He pressed his bare feet together with the web between them.

“Ohh… This feels weird…” Peter said with a slight strain. He took a breath, allowing himself to become adjusted. He waited for something to go wrong with either the web or his shooters, but after a minute passed, nothing happened, and he continued to hang there.

“Alright… Time to move on to phase two.” Peter decided, looking towards the window. He shot a web at it and yanked it upwards to open his window.

He went to his closet, grabbing his ski mask and red boots. He slipped both of them on and took a breath. He started to turn, but then he noticed a red zip-up vest with a hoodie sitting in his closet. They appeared to be the same color as the boots he had taken from school.

“Eh, why not?” He shrugged, taking the hoodie off of his hanger and slipping it on. He made his way to the window, throwing one leg over and looking upwards.

He leaned outwards a bit, stretching his arm out and shooting a web towards the ceiling. It stuck right to the edge as he hoped it would. He took hold of it, squeezing his hands around it. He used it like a rope as he stepped out of his window and planted his feet against the wall.

“Woo! Alright.” He huffed a bit, looking down below him at the ground. He looked back up, and began to climb upwards using the web. He felt his feet slip a little bit, and he yelped.

“Ah! Okay. Just relax, Pete… You got this. You got this.” He said to himself, making his way up a little slower. He made it to the roof and pulled himself over. He turned and looked out towards the city.

“What’s the point of these things if I can already climb walls?” Peter thought aloud to himself, “I said I would try and swing with these, so I’m gonna swing.” He said determinedly.

Peter rubbed his hands together, inching closer to the edge of the roof and looking out again. His eyes scanned his surroundings, looking for buildings that his webs could attach to. He shook his head again as he was starting to psyche himself out.

“Come on, man. Just do it. ‘You gotta run before you can walk.’” Peter said, recalling a quote he’d read once from Tony Stark. He took several steps back. He began to bounce a bit, hyping himself up before breaking into a run and leaping off of the roof of his apartment building.

Peter let out a scared yell as his body flailed. With no buildings to land on, he was forced to use his web shooters. He looked up and shot a web at a building across the street. The web hit the corner, and he was pulled into an abrupt swing.

Peter grunted in effort as his momentum shifted. He spun a bit at the end of his web, his shoulder hitting the corner of the building. He groaned in pain as he spun a bit. His web detached at the end of his swing, leaving him tumbling in the air.

“Oh come on!” Peter yelled, shooting a web out with his other hand. It stuck to a fire escape that made him swing forward towards it.

“Wup!” Peter grunted, pulling himself up a bit. He went upwards and straightened his body, flinging himself through the levels of the fire escape. He awkwardly reached out for the building to his left, catching it with his fingertips and flipping himself so he was crouched against the wall.

“Alright… Little more gently this time...” Peter said with a huff.

Peter began to crawl up the side of the building, looking over the corner. He saw an open alley for him to swing through with a building at the end. He looked to where he wanted to go and visualized himself getting there.

“This isn’t so bad. It’s easy as 1, 2... 3!” Peter leapt off the wall, throwing himself back. He shot a web into the alley and began to swing forward again.

Peter grabbed the web with both hands this time, feeling the rush in his ears as he swung into the alley. He began to swing upwards, and did his best to force his weight upwards by kicking his feet as he reached the edge of his swing.

He rose into the air, flipping backwards over the building in front of him. He landed on it and began to run forward immediately, adjusting his web shooters before jumping out again over a busy street.

“Hello, New York!” Peter laughed out loud and whooped as he swung forward again. His feet could almost touch the cars he was swinging above. He went upwards again and decided to twist his body sideways in the air.

He eyed another corner and webbed it, using his legs to not hit the corner this time. He shot a web at the same building, pulling himself towards it. His body rotated awkwardly, causing his knees to hit the wall before he securely planted his hands and feet on it.

“Ow…” Peter grumbled, looking back again for a place to swing. He eyed a lamppost down below and decided to take a risk with it.

He jumped out again, turning his body in the air and shooting a web at the end of the post. As he dropped down into a swing, he felt the forcefulness of his swing increase, and he let go of the web a little earlier, causing him to go more forward than upwards.

He flung upwards for a bit before finding himself falling towards another lamppost. He tried to shoot a web at it but missed, and ended up hitting it chest first with a loud BANG! Peter groaned in pain, laying limply for a bit.

“Hey, freak show! You okay?” Someone down below called up to him.

“Yeah… Yeah, I’m okay…” Peter said through a pained groan, “Just…getting used to this.” He said to himself…


	11. New Guy

Aunt May was cooking in the kitchen when she heard a sudden thump in Peter’s room. She looked up with a puzzled expression to the door to Peter’s room, which was closed.

“Honey? Are you alright over there?” She asked. There was a bit of a delay before Peter responded.

“Uh, yeah! Everything’s fine! Something just fell off the bunk bed!” Peter called back to her. Aunt May chuckled a bit.

“Still getting used to it, huh?” Aunt May presumed, since they had just taken out his single bed and replaced it with a bunk bed as per Peter’s request.

“Yeah! Just getting used to it!” Peter replied.

“Well come on out in a bit, okay? Dinner’s almost ready!” Aunt May said.

“Got it! No problem.” Peter said with a cough. After a bit, Aunt May decided to go over and knock on his door.

“Hey, hun?” She called through the door.

“Just a second!” Peter called back. There was a bit of shuffling in his room before Peter opened up the door wearing pajama pants and an old T-shirt with a math equation on it.

“Are you exercising in there or something?” She asked with a strange face after noticing the redness on Peter’s face, as though he’d been straining himself somehow.

“Uhh… Yeah. Just doing push-ups, you know how it is.” Peter chuckled it off. Aunt May smiled a bit and made her way back to the kitchen.

“You know, a new gym just opened a few blocks down. Maybe you should try going there. Put some muscles on you for the ladies.” Aunt May said, faintly teasing.

“Heheh, yeah, ‘cause that’s why I wanna work out… Uh, actually, that might be a good idea.” Peter agreed with a hum, seeing this as a good opportunity to cover up what he was actually planning…

***

It was a dark and misty evening in New York. A woman was walking down the street with her dog in tow, her headphones over her ears. She was making her way down the street towards a nearby park when she started to notice a strange presence following behind her.

It was a man in dark clothing. He was on his phone and didn’t appear to be looking at her, but something about him made the woman feel funny…

Not sure where to go, she decided to tug on her dog’s leash and start heading back to her apartment. She turned a sudden corner and began to make her way towards an alley that would provide a shortcut. It was just a straight shot there to the other side, no places to hide by either wall.

As the woman turned the corner, she quickened her frantic pace even more. She looked back behind her and saw the man was still behind her, getting closer to her. She slid her headphones off her ears and down to her neck before turning around.

“Back off, creep!” The woman shouted at him, reaching back and sliding her exercise pack off. The man said nothing as she started to reach into it for her pepper spray.

However, before the man could get close enough to touch her, a strange white strand suddenly shot down and hit the man in the back of the neck. He flinched and felt for it when all of a sudden he began to be pulled up into the air.

“Ah, what the?!” The man yelled in a panic, trying to pull the web off of him.

“Nuh uh uh, buddy. You just hang out here for a second… Sorry, that was lame.” Peter said from the top of the building as he pulled the man up higher.

“Let me go man! What the hell is this?!” The man yelled.

“Quick, get out of here, missus lady! I got this!” Peter yelled to the woman. However, instead of running, the woman pulled out her phone and began to film this strange encounter.

The web got caught in Peter’s shooter now, causing the web to snap off. The man fell to the ground, landing flat on his face. Peter cringed.

“Ooh, sorry about that, that wasn’t part of the plan.” Peter said, shooting a web at the building on the other side of the alley. He jumped down from the roof and swung into the other wall, landing at a lower elevation with his feet against the wall.

“How’re you doing that?!” The woman yelled to him. Peter looked over at her.

“Huh? Oh! I’m glad you asked! It’s actually-“ Peter was interrupted by the man suddenly getting up, pulling out a knife, and attempting to slice at Peter. Peter jumped over him, flipping forward and landing on the ground.

“Hey man, that’s kinda rude of you to cut in like that… God, that one was awful too.” Peter groaned as he turned towards the man.

The man tried to jab at him with the knife again. Peter jumped backwards a bit, trying to figure out his next move. He noticed a dumpster behind the guy. He shot his webs at it and pulled it towards him. It rolled into the man’s back and knocked him forward.

As the man stumbled, Peter reached forward and grabbed the man’s hand with the knife in it. He tried to wrestle it out of the man’s hand. The man pushed his shoulder into Peter’s neck, causing him to stumble back a bit awkwardly.

The man threw a punch at him. Peter instinctively ducked under it and decided to throw his own punch. He threw an uppercut into the man’s stomach, causing the man to lurch forward awkwardly and fall to his hands and knees with a groan.

“Ooh, sorry about that. That was a little hard. I felt that man,” Peter said, leaning down and helping the man sit against the wall. “Here, let’s just go ahead and do this.” Peter held up the man’s hands and then webbed them to the wall.

“Woah!” The woman exclaimed as she saw all of this transpire, “You totally took care of that creep! Thanks, man!” The woman said to Peter, getting a little closer while still holding up the camera. Peter, upon seeing this, cleared his throat and stood up a little taller, speaking in a deeper voice.

“Uh, n-no problem, ma’am. It’s all in a day’s work for a superhero like me.” Peter replied with a nod. The woman took in the strange appearance of her rescuer.

He had on a red and blue outfit: he wore a blue sweater and blue pants with red boots, red gloves, a red vest hoodie and a red mask. He also wore black goggles with frames that were attached to his eyebrows; this allowed her to see when his expressions were getting bigger and smaller.

“Weird outfit.” The woman said.

“Thanks! I-I made it myself.” Peter replied without thinking, mentally hitting himself after saying it.

“Is that webbing stuff coming out of you?” The woman asked, pointing the camera towards the man webbed to the wall before turning it back towards Peter.

“Uh, y-yeah, kinda. We don’t talk about that.” Peter answered.

“What’s your name, superhero guy? My 16 followers are dying to know.” The woman questioned humorously. Peter chuckled a bit.

“Uh, my name…? Uh, my name is… My name is Spider-Man. I’m-I’m Spider-Man.” Peter replied after coming up with the name on the spot.

“Cool. Spider-Man,” The woman repeated. “So, you’re a new superhero, huh? What kind of powers do you have?” She asked.

“I’ll show you as I swing away, for duty calls! Farewell, miss!” Peter replied, shooting a web out behind him and jumping into a swing. He turned the corner and swung away while the woman filmed it with an elated expression.

“God, that was so lame…” Peter said to himself…


	12. First Patrol

One Month Later…

It was finally time to reveal Spider-Man to New York. After testing his limits the best he could in secret, he finally felt confident enough to go out there and start doing what a friendly neighborhood superhero should do…

“Hello, New York!” Peter shouted out as he jumped off of the building, shooting out a web and diving into a swing. He whooped as he jumped up into a slow backflip, making his way down the road and keeping on a lookout for crime…

“Hey, that guy stole my sandwich!” A hefty gentleman shouted as he rushed out of a sandwich after a trashy looking guy in raggedy clothes.

“Oh boy.” Peter muttered to himself, turning himself around in the air and swinging the other way. He grunted a bit as he made his way ahead of the chase, landing in a slide in front of the perpetrator.

“What in the God’s name?!” The guy exclaimed, stopping in his tracks.

Peter quickly turned and shot a web at the sandwich, flinging it towards him. The sandwich rolled out of its wrapper, and it went into the air. Peter yelped as he jumped out to catch it. At the same time, the guy turned around to run.

“Oh no you don’t!” Peter shouted, turning and shooting another web to yank him from the back. The guy was thrown back and skidded backwards on his back.

“Aw god!” The guy groaned, turning awkwardly onto his side.

“Here you go, man!” Peter tossed the sandwich back to its rightful owner. He reached out to catch it. It suddenly bobbed out of his hands and fell to the floor. There was silence between them for a moment…

“Hey, man! Come on!” The hefty man groaned. Peter flinched and quickly jumped into a swing.

“Have a good day, man! Sorry ‘bout that!” He shouted back before quickly swinging over a building and to another street.

***

“Woah… That doesn’t look good.” Peter commented, looking down from his perch atop a building. From there, he could see police sirens chasing after a speeding car that was trying to escape the pursuit.

Peter took a breath and jumped outwards, shooting out a web and swinging after the pursuit in progress. He shot webs from both hands and turned a hard corner, flipping his feet forward and speeding up, allowing him to near the criminals’ car.

“What the hell is that?! Do we shoot it?!” One of the cops exclaimed, looking up out of his window. They weren’t sure how to react.

Peter swung towards the middle of the road, landing atop a streetlight. He shot off several webs towards the car, holding onto them tightly. The car slowed some, and Peter’s light perch began to lurch forward as Peter tried to play tug-of-war with the speeding car.

The police cars suddenly hit their brakes in order to not slam into the car. One of them skirted past the car, breaking Peter’s webs. This threw Peter off balance, but at the same time, the car, whose tires had been spinning the entire time, shot forward again without control.

After swinging side to side a bit, the car sped onto the wrong side of the road and crashed into several other cars, creating a chaotic pile-up. Peter’s eyes widened, as he realized he was going to have to act quickly in order for as few people as possible to get seriously hurt.

“Oh god!” Peter explained as he jumped forward, swinging to the pile-up. Immediately he saw 4 different cars that had been affected by the hit, and there were numerous people that needed help getting out.

Peter started with the criminals, using his webs to pull their car off of the other cars. He pulled the doors open and started pulling the perpetrators out. In their daze, they didn’t really fight back. Peter was quick to web them all together, leaving them for the cops to collect.

Peter then turned his attention to the other cars. One by one he jumped from car to car, helping people to open their car doors and get out. The victims all thanked him quietly as they got out while pedestrians recorded the event on their phones and the police officers watched with confused expressions.

“Um… Stop where you are, you in the red mask…?” One of the officers said, stepping forward. Peter turned towards the officers, stepping forward casually with his hands up to show that he wasn’t threatening them.

“It’s alright, officers, sirs. I got ‘em.” Peter said, holding two thumbs up. The officers paused for a bit, looking at one another.

“Who are you?” One of them asked.

“Oh, you know, I’m just your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is all! Here to lend a hand,” Peter said with a nod, shooting a web out and pulling himself into a swing. “Catch you on the flip side!” Peter called back as he swung away.

***

“What’s with the weird outfit?” The guy standing next to Peter on the subway asked him as he texted Ned on his phone. He looked up from his phone and turned his head towards the gentleman, still wearing the mask to hide his face.

“Oh, uh… I’m a superhero. It’s kind of a new development right now, you know?” Peter replied simply. The guy nodded slowly.

“Oh… Alright. What’s your superhero name?”

“Spider-Man. I’m Spider-Man,” Peter said, shaking hands with the guy, who hesitantly shook his hand in return. “See? I even printed a spider on my vest.” Peter pointed out the faded spider that was printed on the chest area of his vest.

“Yeah, I do see that. So what’re your ‘powers’, Mr. Man?” The guy asked with a bit of a mocking chuckle. The man couldn’t see, but Peter was rolling his eyes under his goggles.

“Um, super strength, super agility, sticky hands and feet, and that’s kind of what I’m working with right now. The rest is kind of revealing itself so far. I also made these web shooters so I can shoot webs, but they kinda ran out… That’s not really a superpower, just figured I’d throw that in there.”

“Ah… Cool. That’s…unique, I guess.” The man commented, speaking with Peter as though he were talking about a character in a game.

“You want to see my powers? It’s pretty cool.” Peter offered, taking a step back to clear some room for himself. Quickly, the man shook his head and held a hand out for him to stop.

“No no no!” He quickly protested.

However, Peter went ahead and jumped upwards, slapping his hands against the roof of the subway car. As he stuck to it, this quickly caught the attention of everyone inside, and they all immediately began to take steps away from him. Peter placed his feet on the roof too.

“See? Spider-Man!” Peter laughed, pointing at himself with his thumb as he turned to face the man he had been speaking with, “Get a picture now before I blow up and become, like, an Avenger,” Peter laughed again before striking a pose for the people pulling out their phones.

“Oh yeah, I’m on my way up.” Peter said to himself...


	13. Dangers

Time really began to fly for Peter after that first day of patrol. One day turned into one week. One week became two weeks, which became a month, than two than four months. Yes, after four months of being Spider-Man, Peter was really starting to find his groove.

Spider-Man was starting to find his groove too. Videos of his exploits and heroic deeds were taking YouTube by storm. He was starting to become a trending topic amongst New York as they city was becoming acquainted with their newest web-based hero.

Especially in school, Peter could see that Spider-Man was being noticed, which to him was a mark of success. He would occasionally overhear students talking about him while watching one of his videos. Peter was sometimes able to get a conversation in about it too, although Ned was the one that would usually humor him more often than not.

As summer came and went, Peter was free to spend more time doing what was quickly becoming his favorite thing to do. Of course, he couldn’t be Spider-Man all the time, but he always looked forward to putting that mask back on.

He was actually on his way to hang out with Ned when something crazy happened. He was just minding his own business, swinging down one of New York’s many streets when suddenly he felt a surge in his head and a chill down his spine.

Almost like his instincts were giving him a warning…

He looked down and saw that there was a black van that was speeding like crazy down the road. It was swerving a bit, and people on the sidewalk were ducking towards the nearest walls in order to get out of its way.

Peter immediately dove a bit, picking up speed and coming up alongside the van. All at once, he noticed several things, and he would only have maybe a second to react to what was going on.

As a man stepped towards the wall to dodge the speeding car, Peter looked ahead and saw that there was a bus coming across an intersection; the van was going to slam directly into the bus unless he did something to stop it.

With no tricks up his sleeve to utilize, Peter did the only thing he could think of. He quickly swung towards the bus, turned his body, and held his hands out to stop the van. It slammed directly into him, its back end going upwards.

The driver inside hit his head on the wheel, immediately being knocked out by the impact. The van came to a dead stop. Peter had successfully stopped it with his bare hands! He didn’t even wait before jumping off of its hood and swinging away.

“That was insane! Did I really just do that?!” Peter laughed to himself.

***

Peter was in a high for the rest of the day, replaying the events over and over again in his mind. He was incredibly impressed with himself, and he was feeling pretty good about what he had done. He kept checking YouTube to see if any videos had gone up about it: none yet.

“Hey, hun?” Aunt May called to him. Peter looked up from the computer that he was working on constructing, removing one of his earbuds and turning towards the door as she walked in and stood in the doorway.

“Yeah? What’s up?” He asked, setting his screwdriver down.

“I’m hungry. Are you hungry?” She asked.

“Psshh… Yeah, I’m feeling pretty hungry.” Peter answered slowly, nodding his head a bit.

“Great! Let’s go get some dinner then. Thai? You good with Thai?” She offered.

“Sure, sounds fine,” Peter agreed, getting up from his chair. “Let me just throw on a different shirt.” He said.

***

“How’s your computer thing coming along?” Aunt May asked as they sat and ate. Peter shrugged a bit as he chewed his own food.

“Pretty good so far, I think. I’m pretty sure I’m gonna have to find a different monitor, like a TV monitor or something. We’ll see though.” Peter said.

“Just be careful with that dumpster diving stuff you do. You never know what kinda animal could getcha and bite ya.” Aunt May warned him with a hint of amusement.

“I will, uh, keep that in mind…” Peter said with a slight cough.

Aunt May’s attention was diverted as she looked up a TV posted on the wall behind Peter. He turned back to look at it too. They were running a news story about Spider-Man, showing pictures and videos from off of YouTube.

“Oh man, looks like there’s a new superhero in town, huh?” Peter said with a faint smile as he turned back towards Aunt May. To his surprise, Aunt May’s expression was much more serious.

“Yeah… We could really use them. Things have been really getting more dangerous around the world lately. Have you noticed?” She brought up.

“What do you mean?” Peter asked, raising his eyebrow slightly.

“Well, ever since those aliens came out of that wormhole in the sky, it’s really been one thing after another. I mean, there was that whole thing with S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra, there was Ultron in Sokovia; things have really been getting hectic everywhere.” She explained her thoughts.

“Yeah, that’s true… But I mean, we have the Avengers, right? We don’t gotta worry that much because we have them around, right?” Peter pointed out.

“They handle a lot of the big things, sure, but there’s still all sorts of dangerous things going on a smaller scale. Even here in New York, there’s still a lot of crime that goes right under the Avengers radar. Does that make sense?” Aunt May explained.

“Well… Yeah, that’s true.” Peter agreed. He wanted to reply by pointing out that people like Spider-Man helped offset that, but to him that wouldn’t seem to help his side of the argument that much.

“I just want you to be careful out there, okay? Stay safe; don’t wander too much on your own. I don’t want to see you get hurt, is all, alright, baby?” Aunt May said, reaching across the table and taking Peter’s hand for a moment. He nodded.

“Alright. I’ll be careful.” He agreed, managing a small smile…


	14. Robbery

“We are live now at the Queens General Bank where we have a hostage situation going on right now. Inside, police approximate that about 7 or 8 men with heavy firearms have taken control of the inside and are holding those inside hostage.

“Police have yet to answer any questions, however, the tension in the air is certainly palpable. I’m getting reports now that a hostage negotiator has just arrived on scene and will be speaking with them over the phone shortly. We’ll stay posted for more details.”

Peter closed out of the live news feed on his phone and looked up from his perch point atop a building: there was the bank in front of him. It was surrounded by police cars and a few SWAT vehicles. Barriers had been placed between law enforcement and the general public that was looking on.

“I should… I should do something…right?” Peter asked himself. Of course, he wanted the answer to be a resounding yes, but it wasn’t that simple.

He was still relatively inexperienced, and he knew this. The men inside had guns, big guns, and he wasn’t used to dealing with that kind of firepower. In addition, he had no protective equipment, just a hoodie and some PJ’s. The odds were not in his favor.

“Maybe I should just…leave this to the professionals.” Peter began to say to himself, starting to turn away from the bank. However, his conscience kept nagging at him, forcing him to look towards the bank once again.

If something happened because he intervened, it would be on his hands… But if something happened because he did nothing, then wouldn’t it be on his hands all the same…?

“I’m gonna die.” Peter sighed before jumping and swinging forward to the bank. He dipped downwards before shooting a web onto the bank itself and pulling himself onto the roof.

Quietly, he crawled up to the very top of the roof, and immediately he found a vent that he could enter through. He ran to it and pulled it off with his hands. After setting it down by his feet, he hopped inside and slowly began to crawl into the building.

As he made his way closer to the bank floor, he could hear some of the men talking to one another:

“I need some demands to give to the police. The negotiator just got here.” A gruff voice said to his partners. A calmer voice spoke in response.

“Just make something up. We just need to stall them until Freddy cuts through the outer piping.” 

“Outer piping?” Peter wondered to himself. He began to crawl to his right, moving over the second floor balcony where a bunch of offices were laid out.

Down below, he could see two men raiding all of the offices. They were probably looking for extra spoils to take with them. From his view, Peter couldn’t see much, but it looked like there were only two of them.

“Hey, can you get me an extra duffel bag. I think the boss man here has a private stash in this safe.” One man requested of the other.

“Yeah, one sec.” The second man responded, beginning to make his way back downstairs.

This was the perfect chance to jump in! Peter reached down, looking for a latch to open up the vent. He fumbled with it for a bit before he was able to slowly open it up. He crawled out and across the ceiling, making his way towards the main office.

Peter looked behind him before dropping down and sneaking a peek inside. There was one of the guys with his back turned away from the door. He was inspecting a safe in the wall of the main office.

Peter shot his webs at the man, immediately pinning him to the wall. He grunted in surprise, unable to turn back and see what happened. Peter laughed a little to himself at his success, but immediately he felt a strange tinge of anxiety. He turned back to see the other guy was coming back.

Peter quickly stepped into the room to hide himself. He looked around for a minute, not sure what to do. With time running out, Peter jumped up towards the ceiling and crawled above door, letting that be his hiding place.

“Woah! Jason, what happened to you?!” The man exclaimed, dropping the bag and starting to make his way over.

“I don’t know man. Get this stuff the hell off me!” The man named Jason shouted back.

As the second guy began to step forward to help Jason, Peter webbed the top of his head and yanked it hard to the side, throwing him off balance. Peter quickly jumped down and stomped on him, kicking him to the ground. The man grunted, landing hard on his back and losing grip of his gun.

The man on the ground quickly reacted, reaching up with his right hand for Peter. Peter webbed his right hand to the floor. The man tried to do the same with his left hand, and Peter webbed his left hand to the floor. The man then tried to yell for help, so Peter webbed his mouth.

“Hey, hush now. We don’t want anyone interrupting our little moment, right?” Peter joked, stepping off of the man.

“What? Is someone else in here?!” Jason yelled with his chest still pinned to the wall.

“You guys seem like you could use a break. I’mma just leave you alone.” Peter said, closing the door of the office behind him. He took a deep breath, and looked down from the balcony.

All of the hostages were below, huddled up and sitting down on the ground quietly. Three more men were guarding them. Peter could only assume the rest of them were in other rooms down below.

Peter shot a web onto the ceiling, pulling himself to the other side in order to see the rest of what was going on. He could now see that there were three more guys below: one was on the phone, one seemed to be digging into the floor, and the last one was gathering together a bunch of duffel bags.

“Looks like they’re gonna tunnel outta here…right under the cops’ noses.” Peter realized what was happening. But he had to find a way to stop them without letting the hostages get hurt…

To Be Continued…


	15. Robbery (Part 2)

"Hey! We need some help up here!"

The five men guarding the hostages all looked up towards the balcony. They heard the voice, but they couldn't see who was calling them. They all looked at each other, stepping closer to the doors.

"Carlos, is that you?" One of them called up. Peter panicked a bit, trying to think of something to say.

"Uh, yeah! Uh, ahem, yeah. There's more cash here than we thought. Some assistance would be appreciated." Peter said in the deepest voice he could manage, shaking his head a bit.

"Junior, go help 'im load things up. Freddy's almost into the sewers." One of the guys said to the other. The one called Junior began to hurry up the stairs, making his way towards the main office.

As he approached it, Peter swung in from above and kicked him into the office. Junior lurched forward a bit, but quickly caught himself. Peter slammed the door of the main office shut behind him.

"Just you and me now..." Peter said. His eyes widened as Junior turned around to look at him. He was a much bigger and heftier guy than what Peter expected. "You don't look like a junior..." Peter said a bit meekly.

Junior jumped forward and grabbed him by the arms, throwing him into the office desk. Peter tumbled over it, landing behind it in an awkward position.

"Yeah, get him, Junior!" Jason yelled, still pinned to the wall.

Peter pushed himself to one foot, grabbing the office desk and flinging it upwards. It crashed into Junior, making him stumble back as the desk broke. Peter webbed the wall behind him with both hands, pulling himself into a flying double kick that slammed into Junior's arms.

Junior and Peter both fell to the ground. Peter kicked up to his feet, stepping forward to web Junior to the ground. However, Junior kicked Peter's foot out from under him and kicked him across the side of the head with the same foot.

Peter cursed as he took the hit, stumbling onto all fours. Junior got up to his feet, grabbing Peter by his left arm and leg. He pulled him up into the air and quickly slammed him back down onto the floor. Peter groaned out in pain.

"Ah jeez, with the wrestling move?!" Peter curled up a bit in pain.

"What the hell was that? You two, go check it out." The apparent leader of the group commanded two of the other men, since they had all heard the loud noise coming from the main office. The two men began to head up the stairs.

Meanwhile, Peter was blocking the downward punches that Junior was throwing down on him. He webbed the wall to his left, pulling himself into Junior's legs and making him hit the ground face first. Peter pulled himself up to his feet, taking a step away from Junior as he began to get up.

"Alright, tough guy. You wanna play football? We'll play football..." Peter said. Junior got to his feet and turned around to face Peter.

"Fumble!" Peter yelled as he ran straight into Junior, tackling him with all of his strength. He barreled straight into Junior, making them both crash through the closed office door. As glass shattered and wood splinters flew everywhere, Peter rolled over Junior's unconscious body.

"Hey, I did it!" Peter said. However, his moment was quickly cut short by the two men coming up the stairs shooting at him. Peter quickly jumped up towards the ceiling to dodge the bullets coming at him.

As Peter hit the ceiling and stuck to it by his hands, he quickly swung his feet up and let go with his hands, causing him to swing forward again. He used the momentum to jump downwards and crash into one of the men, slamming him hard into the ground.

As the second man took a shot at him, Peter jumped up again, using a web to pull the gun out of his hands. As it went into the air, Peter landed on the wall and shot several webs that caught the man by his shoulders. He attached the webs to the ceiling, stringing the man up and making him dangle.

"Ha, it's like a piñata!" Peter laughed as he jumped down onto the rail of the balcony, looking down to see who was left.

The two remaining men guarding the hostages looked up and saw him at that moment. One reached for his gun while the other started to make a run for one of the back rooms. Peter shot a web at the one with the gun, but the shots he had taken caused Peter to fall back off the rail in order to avoid being hit.

"What are you? Some kind of clown?" The man shouted up to him.

"Actually, it's Spider-Clown!" Peter shouted back, leaping off of the balcony and quickly landing on the other side.

Peter dove down towards the man, slamming into him. The man lost grip of the gun as his back hit the ground. Peter planted his hands on the man's chest, cartwheeling forward and throwing the man towards the back room. The man tumbled over the service counter.

"Hold still, bug, or I'll shoot her brains out!" One of the men suddenly threatened. To his left, Peter saw that one of the last remaining men had grabbed one of the hostages, an older woman, and had a gun pointed to her head.

"Woah woah woah woah!" Peter yelled, holding his hands out for him to stop.

"Get on your knees or I'll do it!" The man demanded.

"Okay! Okay... I'll get on my knees. In fact, we'll all get on our knees." Peter said, looking towards the older woman. The man raised his eyebrow in confusion.

"What...?"

"I'm just saying that I don't want any bodies to drop. We don't want to drop, right?" Peter tried again. The woman still wasn't doing what he wanted.

"Stop playing around, man, or I will shoot!" The man said, shaking the woman around a bit.

"Wouldja get down, lady?!" Peter yelled, suddenly shooting a web forward. The woman dropped to the ground out of the way, and the web hit the man in the chest area.

Peter pulled with all of his might, pulling the man off of his feet and towards him. Peter jumped up and kicked him to the side, causing him to slide towards the hostages. Peter shot another web quickly, pulling the gun away from him. It crashed against the wall and shot off a round, making everyone flinch.

"Sorry, guys, my bad. That one's on me." Peter said before shooting another web at the guy, finally pinning him down to the ground. The hostages all began to rush out the front door.

At the same time, Peter heard a strange loud metal sound. He pushed his way past the crowd and ran back towards the room where he had seen Freddy digging through the ground. He saw that there was a hole in the ground now where he had been.

"Geronimo...?" Peter said to himself before jumping in...

After seeing the hostages rushing out, the police began to rush into the bank. To their surprise, they found that most of the men were either knocked out or pinned to the ground by a strange material that resembled spider webs.

"What happened here...?" The police captain asked, looking around. He sent more men upstairs to clear the area, but he began to walk forward on his own when he noticed a strange sight.

In what appeared to be the break room, the police captain found a person hanging upside down by his feet, completely wrapped like a cocoon in the web-like material. He was still alive, struggling in vain to try and get free. Attached to him was a note written on a piece of paper:

WITH COURTESY, YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDER-MAN


	16. Superheroes

“Thanks, Mr. Delmore!” Peter said as he left Delmore’s bodega with his sandwich in hand. He made his way across the street, and began to bite into his sandwich as he crossed the street and made his way home.

Yesterday’s events were still weighing heavily on his mind. It was a real life-or-death situation. People were still alive today because of what he did. Just the thought of that carried such a proud weight in his chest that he almost couldn’t breathe every time he thought about it.

If he had any doubts before about whether he should stick with this superhero gig, they were definitely gone now. After all, what else could he do with his powers?

As he made his way down the street, he came across the same second-hand store he always did. TV’s that were on display in the front window had been tuned in to the news, and there were a few people gathered watching the story being told.

When Peter saw what was passing on the news, he stopped too…

“Troubling news out of Vienna today. As ambassadors from across the world over met at the International Centre to ratify the Sokovia Accords, disaster struck. The believed culprit known only as The Winter Soldier was spotted on security cameras sneaking nearby and shooting a rocket into the building.

“The Sokovia Accords, of course, came into development after the catastrophic events surroundings Sokovia where the Avengers stopped an army of robots laying waste to city. It was determined that it was time that superheroes be brought into check, and now these events have only further solidified this need in the minds of governmental authorities.

“It is still too early to determine the extent of the damage that was done to the building, but already the death toll as a result of this attack is over a dozen. Among those dead, the king of the poor African country Wakanda: King T’Chaka.

“Our heartfelt support and prayers go towards the families of those killed in the attack as now new questions arise about the presence of the Avengers and other like super-powered individuals and whether or not they actually provide a protection or a danger to the general public…”

“Bahh, those Avengers do nothing but make a bunch of messes and then we get stuck with the cleanup. Things’d be better if they’d never shown up at all.” One gentleman standing there commented before going on his way.

As the news began to move on to other stories, the small crowd began to go on their way. Peter began to make his walk back to his apartment again, continuing to eat his sandwich as he thought this over.

It was hard to deny that things had gotten crazier ever since the Avengers had first shown up when aliens invaded New York. A lot of people blamed them for what happened that day. That day still had a big effect on Peter, that being the day that he lost his uncle Ben…

But he never blamed the Avengers for it.

After all, it’s not liked they caused the attack to happen, and if it hadn’t been for them, the death toll would’ve no doubt been much higher than what it ended up being.

That’s why the world needs superheroes. Even if they can’t stop bad things from happening all the time, how much worse would things be without them? And now, Peter had to think about himself and how he fit into that argument as Spider-Man.

The answer was pretty clear to him: New York needed Spider-Man. Sure, he wasn’t an Avenger yet, but somebody’s gotta look out for the city while the Avengers are busy fighting off robot armies and killer aliens.

And with that, Peter’s mind was made up…


	17. Recruitment

“Huh… That’s a really nice car.” Peter said to himself. 

The year had just started back up, and he was beginning to get back into his normal routine. As he approached his apartment, he saw a really nice Porsche parked in the parking lot. It definitely didn’t belong to anyone he knew that lived in this complex.

“What is such a nice looking car doing in a place like this?” Peter wondered to himself as he entered his apartment, adjusting his earbuds.

With a DVD player fresh from the dumpster in his hand, he made his way up the elevator and down to the apartment. He reached into his back right pocket and pulled out his key, and unlocked the door. He walked inside.

“Hey, May.” He greeted as he entered, setting his backpack down and heading towards the kitchen.

“Mmm, hey,” Aunt May greeted with a hum. “How was school today?”

“It was okay. This crazy car parked outside…” Peter’s sentence trailed off as he looked into the kitchen to see none other than Tony Stark sitting next to his aunt on the couch! His blood ran cold with shock as Aunt May looked at him with an excited expression.

“Oh, Mr. Parker.” Mr. Stark said, looking up at him.

“Um…” Peter paused for a moment, removing his earbuds and stammering in surprise. “What? What are you- What are you doing… Hey! Uh, I’m-I’m-I’m Peter.” He finally got his introduction out.

“Tony.” He replied simply.

“What are you- What are you- What are you doing here?” Peter asked.

“It’s about time we met. You’ve been getting my emails, right?” Tony asked, winking at him. Immediately, Peter started to catch on.

“Yeah. Yeah.” He said.

“Right?”

“Regarding the…”

“You didn’t even tell me about the grant.” Aunt May spoke up suddenly.

“About the grant.” Peter finished his sentence, almost as if agreeing with what she was saying.

“The September Foundation.” Mr. Stark specified.

“Right.” Peter said, folding his arms in front of him.

“Yeah. Remember when you applied?” Mr. Stark asked.

“Yeah…?”

“I approved! So now we’re in business.” Mr. Stark said, giving him a firm, hinting expression before beginning to sip from his mug.

“But you didn’t tell me anything. What’s up with that?” Aunt May asked, “You keeping secrets from me now?”

“Well, I just- I just know how much you love surprises, so I thought I would let you know… Anyway, what did I apply for?” Peter changed subjects and directed his question to Mr. Stark.

“That’s what I’m here to hash out.”

“Okay. Hash it out, okay.”

***

Peter and Mr. Stark made their way into Peter’s room. Mr. Stark closed the door behind him, immediately turning and walking to his trash can. He spit out the food that Aunt May had offered him.

“As walnut date loaves go, that wasn’t bad,” He commented before making his way over to Peter’s desk. “Oh whoa, what do we have here? Retro tech, huh? Thrift store? Salvation Army?” He asked as he pointed at the tech on Peter’s desk.

“Uh, the garbage actually.” Peter answered.

“You’re a dumpster diver.”

“Yeah, I was… An-Anyway, look, um, I definitely did not apply for your grant…”

“Ah-ah,” Mr. Stark interrupted him. “Me first.”

“Okay.”

“Quick question of the rhetorical variety,” Mr. Stark said before pulling up a holographic video from his phone that displayed Spider-Man swinging past a car thief and webbing his foot out from under him. “That’s you, right?” He asked Peter.

“Um, no. What do you- What do you mean?” Peter immediately folded his arms and got defensive. Mr. Stark kept going.

“Yeah,” Mr. Stark pulled up another video of when he stopped a speeding car from crashing into a public transit bus with his bare hands. “Wow! Nice catch; 3,000 pounds, 40 miles an hour? That’s not easy. You got mad skills.”

“That’s, uh, that’s all on YouTube, though, right? I mean, that’s where you found that? Because you know that’s all fake. It’s all done on the computer?”

“Mm-hmm.” Mr. Stark hummed, beginning to look around his room a little more.

“It’s like that video. What is it…?”

“Yeah yeah. Oh, you mean like those UFOs over Phoenix?”

“Exactly.” Peter answered.

Before he could realize it, Mr. Stark had already taken a stick and used it to open up the attic door in his room, revealing where Peter kept his costume.

“Oh, what have we here?” Mr. Stark asked. Immediately, Peter grabbed the costume and threw it back into his closet area, leaning against the wall to hide it.

“Uh…”

“So… You’re the Spider…ling. Crime-fighting spider. You’re Spider-Boy?” Mr. Stark asked. Peter folded his arms again and sighed, seeing that he’d been found out.

“S-Spider-Man.” He corrected him.

“Not in that onesie, you’re not.” Tony commented.

“It’s not a onesie,” Peter said, stepping away so that Mr. Stark could see the costume. “I don’t believe this. I was actually having a really good day today, you know, Mr. Stark. Didn’t miss my train, this perfectly good DVD player was just sitting there, and Algebra test… Nailed it.” Peter said, smacking his screwdriver against his desk.

“Who else knows? Anybody?” Mr. Stark asked, holding Peter’s costume in his hands. Peter shook his head.

“Nobody.”

“Not even your unusually attractive aunt?”

“No. No. No no! If she knew, she would freak out. And when she freaks out, I freak out…”

“You know what I think is really cool? This webbing,” Mr. Stark tossed the webbing container to Peter, and he caught it. “That tensile strength is off the charts. Who manufactured that?”

“I did.”

“Climbing walls; how you doing that? Adhesive gloves?”

“It was a long story, I was…”

“Lordy! Can you even see in these? Eh, I’m blind!” Mr. Stark asked, holding up Peter’s goggles to his eyes and making funny noises.

“Yes, I can!” Peter snatched his costume away and put it back, “I can see in those. Okay? It’s just that when whatever happened happened, it’s like my senses have been dialed to 11. There’s-There’s way too much input, so they just kinda help me focus.” Peter explained.

“You’re in dire need of an upgrade. Systemic, top to bottom, hundred-point restoration,” Mr. Stark commented. “That’s why I’m here,” He said as Peter sat down on his bed. Mr. Stark changed gears and asked Peter a very pointed question.

“Why are you doing this?” He asked. Peter shifted a bit, and his eyes widened a bit. “I gotta know. What’s your MO? What gets you outta that twin bed in the morning?” He asked. Peter looked down at his hand and rubbed it a bit.

“Because… Uh… Because I’ve been me my whole life, and I’ve had these powers for six months…”

“Mm-hmm.” Mr. Stark hummed to indicate that he was listening.

“I read books, I build computers… And yeah, I would love to play football, but I couldn’t then so I shouldn’t now.”

“Sure, because you’re different.” Mr. Stark said, following along with his reasoning.

“Exactly, but I can’t tell anybody that, so I’m not… When you can do the things that I can, but you don’t…and then the bad things happen, they happen because of you.” Peter finally got his motif for the past 6 months out. Mr. Stark nodded a bit.

“So you wanna look out for the little guy, you wanna do your part. Make the world a better place, all that, right?”

“Yeah yeah yeah, just looking out for the little guy… That’s what it is.” Peter replied. Mr. Stark stood up a bit and made his way over.

“I’m gonna sit here, so you move the leg,” Mr. Stark said. Peter did so, and he sat next to him. He patted a hand on his shoulder. “You got a passport?”

“No, I don’t even have a driver’s license.”

“You ever been to Germany?”

“No.”

“Oh, you’ll love it.” Mr. Stark said.

“I can’t go to Germany.” Peter defended.

“Why?” Mr. Stark asked. Peter paused a bit awkwardly, not finding a definitive reason to give him off the top of his head.

“I-I got…homework.” He answered finally. Mr. Stark rolled his eyes at him.

“I’m gonna pretend you didn’t say that.” He said, beginning to get up.

“No, I-I’m being serious. I can’t just drop out of school!”

“Might be a little dangerous. Better tell Aunt Hottie I’m taking you on a field trip.” Mr. Stark teased him. Immediately, Peter stood up and webbed Mr. Stark’s hand to the doorknob, not allowing him to open the door.

“Don’t tell Aunt May.” Peter stipulated, holding up a finger.

“Alright, Spider-Man,” Mr. Stark said. Peter’s eyes widened a bit; he felt a bit star-struck at hearing Iron Man address him by his superhero name.

“…get me out of this.” Mr. Stark said suddenly, gesturing to his webbed-up hand. Peter flinched and quickly went back towards his desk.

“Sorry, I’ll get the, uh… So, uh uh, what’s the… What’s the big mission?” Peter asked, grabbing his screwdriver and starting to cut through the webbing.

“You’ll get the scoop when we get there.” Mr. Stark said to him.

“Got it, got it. Okay…” Peter nodded, taking a deep breath.

It really began to sink in then and there that this was to be a new chapter in his life as Spider-Man, a crime-fighting superhero…

The End


End file.
